Battle of Hondschoote

The Battle of Hondschoote (6-8 September 1793) was a battle of the French Revolutionary Wars fought between the armies of France and the Coalition nations of Great Britain, Hanover, and Hesse-Kassel in the Flanders region of northern France.

By August 1793, Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg's Austrian army had taken Conde, Valenciennes, and Le Cateau in northern France, and the Allies planned to advance on Cambrai next. However, Duke Frederick of York - the commander of the Anglo-German army in Flanders - decided to instead push on the port of Dunkirk. He sent 22,000 British troops to besiege Dunkirk, while 14,500 troops under Wilhelm von Freytag would protect his left flank.

The new commander of the French Armee du Nord, Jean Nicolas Houchard, was faced with several problems upon upon becoming commander-in-chief in the north: he was inexperienced, his men were a rag-tag band of defeated soldiers, and both him and his officers were not confident that they could defeat their Coalition foes. However, the levee en masse led to his army being reinforced, and the French strengthened their front as the Coalition forces became too spread out.

The numerically-superior French Army of the North launched several assaults against the Coalition forces in an attempt to drive a wedge between the Anglo-German army and the Austrian forces. The Anglo-German army held on bravely despite being outnumbered, and the French began to run low on ammunition. When Houchard asked Jourdan if he should halt the attacks, Jourdan's chief-of-staff replied, "Failing cartridges, are there not bayonets?" Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte's regiment forded the river that night, and the exhausted French troops were pressed onwards to rout the Anglo-German army. Both Von Freytag and Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge were briefly wounded and captured (later being rescued in a counterattack by Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge), and the Hanoverians lost a third of their number before retreating. The battle forced the Anglo-German army to lift its siege of Dunkirk and retreat.